Robotics & RL Engineer (Humanoid Sim-to-Real) — Collaborative, Teaching-Oriented

I'm the founder of a humanoid robotics AI company. I need a robotics/RL engineer who can work alongside me on real problems while explaining their thinking and approach so I build deep understanding over time. This could lean more toward hands-on engineering or more toward structured teaching depending on your strengths. Ideally both. Scope: • Reinforcement learning for motor control (PPO, SAC, reward shaping, curriculum learning) • Sim-to-real transfer pipelines for legged/humanoid robots • Physics simulation environments (MuJoCo, Isaac Sim, Isaac Lab) • Locomotion policy training and deployment • Control systems fundamentals (PID, impedance control, EtherCAT) • URDF/MJCF model creation and tuning • Real-time inference at the edge About me: Strong software engineering background. I work daily with a robotics team and need to go from high-level AI/ML understanding to being able to evaluate technical decisions, read papers, and contribute meaningfully to architecture discussions. Format: • Video calls every 1-3 days (1-2 hours per session) • Mix of collaborative engineering work and structured learning • Async Q&A between sessions • Duration: 2-3 months initially, ongoing if it works well Ideal candidate: • Has shipped sim-to-real on real legged or humanoid hardware • Professional experience with MuJoCo and/or Isaac Sim • Strong communicator who can explain complex concepts clearly • Comfortable with a collaborative working style, not just isolated task execution Budget: Open to hourly or weekly retainer. Share your rate and availability and we can arrange a short intro call to see if we are a fit.